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Fact Sheet
MetamorphoSys Sheet

Introduction

MetamorphoSys is the installation wizard and customization program included in each release of NLM's Unified Medical Language System® . It installs one or more of the UMLS Knowledge Sources. If the UMLS Metathesaurus® is selected, it allows the user to create customized Metathesaurus subsets.

Users customize their Metathesaurus subsets for two main purposes:

  1. to exclude vocabularies from output that are not required or licensed for use in a local application;
  2. to select from a variety of data output options and filters.

The Metathesaurus consists of a number of files, some of which can be extremely large. Excluding sources can significantly reduce the size of the output subset. Given the number and variety of vocabularies reflected in the Metathesaurus, it is unlikely that any user would require all, or even most, of its more than 100 vocabularies. In addition, some sources require separate license agreements for specific uses, which a UMLS user may not wish to obtain. These are clearly indicated in the Appendix to the License Agreement at: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/research/umls/license_appendix.html. Additional information about some source vocabularies may be found on the UMLS Homepage under "Metathesaurus Source Vocabularies" at http://umlsinfo.nlm.nih.gov

Requirements

The 2004AB version of MetamorphoSys has been tested on the following Operating Systems: Sun Solaris 8 and 9, Windows XP, NT, and 2000, and Linux (Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS, v. 3). It is implemented in Java and run-time environments for all platforms included in the release.

MetamorphoSys may be executed from the UMLS DVD-ROM (which contains the application and the compressed UMLS Knowledge Sources data files), or a very high-speed Internet connection may be used to download files from the UMLS Knowledge Sources Server (UMLSKS) at: http://umlsks.nlm.nih.gov. Because downloads on a T1 line with 1 megabit per second throughput will require over 5 hours, NLM expects that MetamorphoSys will usually be run from the DVD.

To use the DVD, you must have a DVD reader and sufficient disk space. NLM recommends at least 22 GB free space. Multiple runs that create multiple subsets of the Metathesaurus will need even more space. For reasonable performance, we suggest these minimum requirements:

DVD Advanced Options allow the user to copy the UMLS Knowledge Sources data files and/or MetamorphoSys directly to local storage. This may be useful for multiple runs or subsetting an existing subset, and it may improve performance time.

The 2004AB UMLS is available on a single-disk DVD-ROM, which contains:

Customization components

Three pre-defined subsets assist users in creating useful and manageable output subsets during the installation process. Users have the opportunity to modify these default subsets to include or exclude additional source vocabularies. MetamorphoSys also allows users to select one of two release formats, to choose 7-bit ASCII or the UTF-8 Unicode character set, to exclude data in specific languages, and to eliminate all concepts assigned to particular semantic types.

NLM invites suggestions regarding additional useful pre-defined subsets and other enhancements to MetamorphoSys. These can be sent to custserv@nlm.nih.gov.

More detail about installing, starting, and using MetamorphoSys is available in the UMLS Documentation.

A complete list of NLM Fact Sheets is available at:
(alphabetical list) http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/factsheets/factsheets.html
(subject list): http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/factsheets/factsubj.html

Or write to:

FACT SHEETS
Office of Communications and Public Liaison
National Library of Medicine
8600 Rockville Pike
Bethesda, Maryland 20894

Phone: (301) 496-6308
Fax: (301) 496-4450
email: publicinfo@nlm.nih.gov

Last updated: 05 September 2004
First published: 07 May 2004
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